Christopher Wray
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Christopher Asher Wray was born in December 1967 in New York City. He attended the Buckley School and the private boarding school Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Wray graduated from Yale University and earned his Juris Doctor at Yale Law School. He spent a year clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
He joined government service as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Wray to be the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, and served in that position for two years.
Wray spent the next two years in the private practice of law, representing several Fortune 500 companies.
In June 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Wray to be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was confirmed by the Senate with bipartisan support. He assumed his post in August 2017.
Wray is married to Helen Garrison Howell, and they have two children.
In the News…
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking at about 100 different types of ransomware, many of which trace back to hackers in Russia. The FBI director compared the recent spate of cyberattacks with the challenge posed by the terrorist attacks of twenty years ago on 9/11/2001.
“There are a lot of parallels, there’s a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention,” Christopher Wray, FBI Director, said in an interview. “There’s a shared responsibility, not just across government agencies but across the private sector and even the average American.”
The comments of the director—among the first publicly since two recent ransomware attacks against the U.S. meat and oil-and-gas industries—come as senior administration officials have characterized ransomware as an urgent national security threat. Director Wray said they are looking at ways to disrupt the criminal ecosystem that supports the booming cyberattack industry. He stated that each of the 100 different malicious software variants is responsible for multiple ransomware attacks in the United States.
Ransomware is a type of malicious computer code that locks up a victim network’s files that hackers use to demand payment for their release, typically with a digital currency like bitcoin.
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Director Wray today? You can let him know at:
The Honorable Christopher Wray, Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20535
